Countdown to Kickoff

Rise and shout, Cougar Fans! Fall practice has begun, which means it's time to officially get excited about another season of college football. Don't get me wrong, I've been actively engaged in follow the new commits, projected starters, predictions, players breaking the law and it being front page material, though none of it would have made the news at any other school. But the start of fall practice really means it's just around the corner.
Here are a couple links to get you up to speed on this years campaign:

Cougarfan.com - This picks up stories from sources around the nation (mostly Utah) about what is going on with the Cougs. Love it, need it.
Highlight Vids - This awesome site gives whets your appetite for some more football. I try to watch one or two a week, just to keep my senses sharp. Good for down time at home, the office, church, dentist, doctor, delivery room...
Total Blue Sports - This is part of Scout.com; gives some more in depth coverage of your defending MWC champs and holders of the 2nd longest winning streak in the NCAA.
Chat - This site lets you chat it up with other BYU fans and a fair number of anti-BYU folks. Always good for a scoop, but make sure you have the salt shaker near
Official Homepage - This is the official site of BYU Football. Good stuff, including links to purchase some excellent BYU paraphenalia.

If any of you tried and true, Cougar Blue, thru and thru fans have other websites you'd like to give me, let me know and I'll add them to the list and give you credit for the find.

Rise all loyal Cougars and hurl your challenge to the foe.
You will fight, day or night, rain or snow.
Loyal, strong, and true
Wear the white and blue.
While we sing, get set to spring.
Come on Cougars it's up to you. Oh!

CHORUS:

Rise and shout, the Cougars are out
along the trail to fame and glory.
Rise and shout, our cheers will ring out
As you unfold your victr'y story.

On you go to vanquish the foe for Alma Mater's sons and daughters.
As we join in song, in praise of you, our faith is strong.
We'll raise our colors high in the blue
And cheer our Cougars of BYU.

July 2007

It’s not that a lot hasn’t happened since the 4th of July post, it’s just that I haven’t written anything. But now I’d like to remedy that.
Things are going well, just plugging along. Not much really – just a baby due in the next 4-5 weeks, making offers on houses, spending a few days in the wilds of North Dakota, seeing a brother who’s been out of the country for a couple years, getting more and more busy at work, counting down the days until college football is back (T-minus 31) – basically what everyone else is doing.
We found a house the other day and were actually making an offer, but missed the cut by about 2 hours. It was really nice – a 2200 sq ft foreclosure going from $149k. All it needed was a paint job and a carpet, but we just missed it. The paperwork was out, I had my offer in my hand and 25 Tums in my stomach, but we missed it. But, with all the idiots out there with interest-only, adjustable rate mortgages buying more than they can afford, I’m supremely confident we’ll find one soon. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it is that the short school bus is always overflowing with fools and I can benefit from their mistakes. Selfish? Opportunistic? Cynical? Maybe. But it’ll get e a good deal on a house.
We spent some time in northern North Dakota (Grand Forks) the other week with my maternal side of the family. The Allred clan is large – my mother is one of 9 siblings, I am one of 55-60 grandkids – and it was a bit different for Paula, who comes from a very small extended family. But she embraced our right-wing oddities and we had a good time. Forrest was there, having just returned from two years of missionary services in south Brazil. He looked good, despite the fact his hair decided not to return stateside with him. What do you do? But it was good to see him, to catch up with him and the rest of my family. On a serious note, I feel extremely lucky to have such a strong bond with my siblings and parents. While I’m not daft enough to think we don’t have differences, I know that I am always excited to see them, that they love me in spite of myself and support me, even if they disagree.
Paula’s large and in charge. I’ll probably get a look for saying that, but Lydia’s growing and hence is Paula. But she’s a good looking pregnant woman and though her body weight as increased by 20% in this pregnancy, she still only weighs 135 pounds. I weighed that once, 14 years ago. I’m pretty much ready to do this. The anticipation is killing me. K-I-L-L-I-N-G me. (It’d be embarrassing if I spelled that wrong.) We went to a birthing class last month – 8 hours, 1 day – and I took it pretty well. Sure, I saw things I hoped I’d never see, was told things I hoped I’d never know, learned things I hoped I’d never learn. But I am grateful for one thing: the epidural. I don’t want to feel a thing.
And finally, BYU plays Arizona on September 1st. 31 days. That’s no time at all. I could save enough for a John Edwards haircut. Some might think that I’m more excited for football season than Lydia’s birth. I just laugh.

The 4th, as related on the 9th.

Hope everyone had a great 4^th of July. I did. And that’s what I’m going to post about. Plus some random and sundry things.
On this great day we celebrate our independence from the tyranny and oppressive rule of a powerful regime. Out numbered, with inferior weapons and only thedesire to live free, our forebearers were able to fight against these terrible odds and destroy those aliens thanks to the bold plan of the Fresh Prince and doctor from Jurassic Park. They fearlessly infiltrated the mother ship and planted a virus with an Apple computer that miraculously destroyed this advanced, space traveling horde.
Anyway, enough history – time for the present.
On this Independence Day, I celebrated my independence from work by playing all day. In the morning, I hit up Transformers with Jeff and Eric. It was awesome – I mean, it’s not going to win any awards (unless there’s a category for “Best Picture That Brings Out The Boy In Every Man”, then it would definitely win). Optimus Prime was one cool machine/alien life-form. And any film with Jon Voight is destined for immortality.
That little party ended around Noon:30 and Paula and I made the trek down south to spend the day in Conyers at the Pyne residence with friends and family. It was really something else, a non-stop foray into fun.First, the weather was really enjoyable for July in Georgia – relatively low humidity, high 80s, low 90s and the shade felt actually felt good – so it opened up a whole other avenue for enjoyment with a wide and versatile range of activities.
We started out with tossing around the ol’ pigskin in the backyard. Always a staple for a 4^th of July celebration. After working up a sweaty sheen, we went inside where a plethora of delicious foods tempted me from my course en route to a victory in the ILTMW Cup (more on that later) but I didn’t flinch. In fact, I didn’t have one cookie, desert, chip or dip the entire day. So eat that, chubby brother. But I did have a couple burgers and several ‘Zero’ beverages and that was sufficient for my needs.
After housing some food off the grill, several of us engaged in a little game called Bocce Ball. It’s a lot of fun and I am pleased to announce my team won a best-of-3 series. It was an intense battle and since it is played with circular objects of varying size and color, there were plenty of wise-cracking, semi-juvenile innuendos. And lots of laughs.
We took a quick beverage break, and then it was to the front yard for some intense Croquet action. I’m pretty sure more time was spent debating the validity of Mark’s ball position in relation to the wicket on the backside than actually was spent competing. As glorious as Bocce was, Croquet was inversely pathetic as few of us could get where we needed to be because we spent so much time trying to hit the other team’s ball into the next zip code. Good times.
Intermixed in these events was a little thing called Guitar Hero 2. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s like that Dance Revolution, but infinitely better and incredibly more difficult. And you don't use your feet for anything. And you're playing the guitar, not dancing. That’s about all I can say. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be and I struggled a bit, but managed to lay down a couple sweet tracks before the night was over.
As dusk settled in, it was time to light off some fireworks. Greg and I did the honors. And I almost died. Not really. Papa Cashman had dropped some coin for some less-than-legal fireworks and the came with this cylinder to shoot them out of. The looked like the grenades from Pirates of the Caribbean. It was awesome. Well, I dropped one in the tube and backed up. Then it didn’t leave the tube and the tube exploded in a dizzying array of color, fire and fear. Sort of ended the festivities, but it was fun.
Finally, the guys hooked up the 360’s to the plasma TV’s and engaged in some ferocious Halo 2 warfare until the wee morning hours – the perfect end to a perfect 4^th.

********

Regarding ILTMW (I Lost The Most Weight): I’m not going to divulge how much weight I’ve dropped because I don’t know how much my competition has shed; however, I must admit that from the pics posted on their blog, he’s looking slimmer. That binge and purge strategy really seems to be paying dividends...and the fact he’s spending some time at the beach – a good tan goes a long way. Having seen those photos, I’ve had to alter my strategy.
I have a delicious Diet Pill Cocktail for breakfast (TrimSpa, Ripped Fuel, Dexatrim, Cortaslim and Relacore blended together in a Metamucil/ExLax base), another for lunch and then a sensible dinner. Working wonders. I can tell because I’m constantly sweating and my resting heart rate is at 120.

I was going to post something nice about my competition, but I got this little quip in my email:

"This is your brother. The one with his manhood still who doesn't have a facebook account."

Initially, I was hurt by mocking comment regarding my masculinity; then remembered I challenged his manhood throughout college while he shaved his chest. Tit for tat. Or as in that hilarious exchange from The Office:

Dwight K. Schrute: Tit for tit.

Jim Halpert: That is not the expression.

Dwight: Well, it should be.

Playing Ketchup

It’s been what? almost three weeks since I last posted? My bad. The fact of the matter is…and Paula always gets fired up when I say this because it sounds like we’re boring, but it is what it is….that not much is going on. But, out of respect for the 3 or 4 people – 10-15 if we address infant ear-piercing – who faithfully check this blog, I will post some random drivel.

Weekend Wanderings
The LP Roberts family’s free time has been largely invested in two things:

1.) Looking for a house
2.) Wondering how people ever afford a house

For the past two Saturdays, we’ve traversed Gwinnett County for a house we can afford not in a drug neighborhood. Easier said than done. You know its bad news when the houses you can afford are in areas where the others houses have eight cars parked in the driveway, on the lawn, on the street, in the flower garden, etc…and they hadn’t got the memo on the invention of a little device called a lawnmower. But, what do you do?
We’re confident we’ll find something decent and safe; I’m not looking for the Taj Mahal, but something a little bigger than the linen closet.

Walk of Shame
We did trek out to Conyers a couple Fridays ago to see the new residence of Greg and Melissa. I don’t have any pictures to post because I forgot my wide-angle lens…I kid! I kid! But, seriously folks, it’s a beautiful home and we had a good time. So good, in fact, that most who came out stayed up until 3:30am playing pool and singing karaoke. Even Paula (who is not known for her ability to stay up past 8:30pm) was up until almost 2:30 – I was so proud! The singing was abysmal, to say the least. They don’t make buckets large enough for me to carry a tune in, and Dave, Todd and Greg share in my disability. So I was in great company. Paula and I crashed in one of the guest rooms and rolled out the next morning, arriving home in the same clothes we left in. Apparently this is what is referred to as “the walk of shame” (returning the next day in your same clothes). I almost felt like I was young again. But then I had to take a nap, and I remembered I’m not.

Weighting For The Results
Nathan and I are engaged in a contest regarding our waistlines. To put it gently, Nathan’s really porked out. He’s huge. Pavarotti, if you want to know what happened to your pants, I saw them in Nerf’s closet. (I think they’ve stretched a bit, so just buy new ones.) Meantime, I’m pretty much packin’ the six-pack abs I always have, modeling for Men’s Health on the weekends. It’s a burden I bear, this perfect body. We all have our crosses…
Really though, Nathan’s not huge and I’m no fitness model, so we are seeing who can shed the most weight by the reunion at the end of July. Nathan mentioned the other day he’s employed a strategy of biking to work, softball, swimming in the ocean and puking after every meal; the strategy I’ve employed has different activities since I don’t have an ocean, bike and hate vomiting. I engage in intense gaming to break a good sweat (10 pushups per offensive score, 15 per defensive in NCAA Football 2007) and using laxatives to purge. I’ve been able to get through the first 4 Harry Potter books with this strategy. You can’t do that throwing up…

Another Face In The Crowd
Finally, I’m now on Facebook. I was trying to hold out (like a blog is somehow infinitely superior to a social networking site) but got a couple invites from old college friends, so since I wanted to see what they were up to, I joined. I think that was last week and now I’m getting ‘poked’ and having my ‘wall’ written on by tons (or dozens) of old college friends and friends of college friends. So, if you’re a Facebooker, let me know. If I don’t confirm you as my friend, it’s nothing personal.
I just don’t like you.

What A Trip, Man...

Caveat: Some May Find This Post Objectionable.
This post contains a lot of pictures of a baby and is very long.
A week ago today I surprised the Nerf with a surprise visit to California. It was pretty much awesome since Lindsay and I conspired to keep it under wraps. We surprised him at work; he opened the back door of the car to see Beckett and found his big brother sitting there. It was like a MasterCard commercial:

"Round-trip ticket: $260. Hotdog: $14. Nathan’s expression: Priceless."

It was a great time in Beverly Hills/LA/West Hollywood/All-The-Other-Cities-That-Run-Together. It was the first personal time I’d taken in 2007 and served up the remedy I needed to the doldrums of everyday life. SoCal was great, primarily because of the incredible weather we enjoyed. The locals call it ‘June Gloom’ because it is grey and hazing until around 12-1pm; but then it just opens up to a beautiful mid-high 70’s with a wonderful ocean breeze. Basically, the weather rocks. I loved it. Someone offer me a job. As opposed to my lovely Atlanta residence where it’s mid 90’s with humidity and a breeze that feels awkwardly like an over-aggressive hand-dryer in the men’s room at the Citgo where people deal drugs and there are more adult magazines than alcohol-free beverages. But you’re out of gas and even though it’s a dollar more a gallon, you gotta put $5 in or you aren’t making it home…
I digress.
One of the highlights for me (and one of the main reasons I made the trek) was chillin’ with Beckett, the first of Roberts: The Next Generation. He took to me instantly and we had a great time, as evidenced by this video on their blog; it was awesome to see my brother – the one I fought with, played football and basketball with, roomed with and have competed with since I lost my exclusive rights on all attention at 16 months – interact as a father. Additionally, having been there within hours of the time Nathan and Lindsay met five years ago to now, it was fun to see them as parents. They do good work.
Anyway, I got there Thursday afternoon it wasn’t long until Nathan, Michael and I were playing Halo (I don’t care if you’re suddenly a parent or not – some things never change). Friday Lindsay, Beckett and I went to the mall, cruised around Beverly Hills and took in the sights. I’m not exactly sure if I was in Silicon Valley, but I was definitely in Silicone Valley. The 6 Millon Dollar Man had more human left in him than some of the women I saw.

Friday night we went over to dinner at Dan and Paula’s. This isn’t some fancy restaurant (though the filet mignon, baked potatoes, ice cream and endless flow of IBC root beer certainly would make you think so); rather, it’s Lindz’s uncle and aunt. They are awesome and we had some good times with them, their daughters Sam and Jules, and some friends Michelle and Peter. The have a beautiful home in the area fairly close to the ocean and I they were awesome hosts. Good times.

Once we got home, we played Halo till 1:30 in the AM. It never gets old.
Saturday we got a slow start due to the intense gaming session. Once everyone was up, we went down to Venice Beach to take in the crazies…oh, the ocean too…and all they have to offer. It was like Chinatown in NYC, except the peddlers were Hispanic and illegal instead of Chinese, the food was pizza and hotdogs instead of duck and egg rolls and the air smelled like the ocean instead of sewage and death. And I saw this guy strutting around in a man-thong. Big-G, little-Nasty - GNASTY (the G is silent).
Later that day Nerf and Linds went to the LA Temple for a session in the upper room in commemoration of the temple’s 50th anniversary and I watched Beckett. I fed him ice cream and soda and Swedish Fish and…oh, I forgot that’s all frowned upon for a 4 month old. Oh well, all’s well that end’s well.

Saturday night us grown-ups went to The Magic Castle. TMC is an exclusive club – I refer to it as the Augusta National of Magicians –you have to belong to or be invited to in order to gain entrance. Tie and jacket for the fellas, dress or suit for the ladies, was just up the road for Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and is indeed a castle. We made an appearance because Nathan’s company was having a shindig and it was awesome. There was some great food and amazing feats of magic. Seriously. It was incredible. As Nathan aptly pointed out, it would have been more comforting to think magic actually was happening as opposed to the fact these magicians were so quick with their slight of hand.
Also, I met a kid Nathan works with who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 30 seconds. Tyson Mao was on the TV show “Beauty and the Geek” and is a celebrity of sorts. Tyson is a developer and writes the programming EWT uses for their trading; in fact, that’s how he can do the cube so fast: he created an algorithm by assigning numbers to colors on the cube. Crazy.

Sunday was church. It was cool because there was a kid there I went to college with. Wes and I lived in the same apartment complex for 3 years and were in the same ward for most of my post-mission collegiate experience. He’s married with a little one year old girl name Halle. So that was fun.
After church, we went to a park with the Eav family and us guys did a little lawn bowling. The parks there are awesome. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Suffice it to say as the rookie of the group, I didn’t grab any victories. I’m not bitter…stupid Bocce Ball!!!!!
Monday was my last day and Nathan worked a half day. I went on a walk with Linds and Beckett, Ashley and Arleigh, and Angie and Charles to the Post Office. It was a little weird as I was the only man with three women and three children in strollers, but when in Rome…

We grabbed a bite at Jack Sprat’s in memoriam of Rach and her days in LA. I had a delicious Mediterranean Quesadilla. Then we stopped by the mall to try to find me a shirt as all mine had spit-up all over them, courtesy of my awesome little nephew. But I didn’t find anything, so I just wore Nathan’s shirt home. It’s nice. I think I’ll keep it.
Anyway, that’s about it. We cruised down to the OC and I caught my flight at 8pm, arriving back in Hotlanta at 5am Tuesday morning. Good times. I sure miss the little guy (his parents too, but mostly the little guy…and working Nathan at Halo) and the weather, but such is life. I’m already excited to go back. In the words of Phantom Planet:

“Pedal to the floor
Thinkin' of the roar
Gotta get us to the shore
California here we come”

(I didn’t buy a $14 hotdog.)